Verepoint struck the business note. “Now you stop, boys,” she said.       “Tie weights to yourselves and sink down into those chairs. I want you two lads to write a revue for me.”      

       “Delighted!” said Bromham Rhodes; “but——”      

       “There is the trifling point to be raised first——” said R. P. de Parys.     

       “Where is the money coming from?” said Bromham Rhodes.     

       “My friend, Mr. Bleke, is putting up the money,” said Miss Verepoint, with dignity. “He has taken the Windsor Theater.”      

       The interest of the two authors in their host, till then languid, increased with a jerk. “Has he? By Jove!” they cried. “We must get together and talk this over.”      

       It was Roland's first experience of a theatrical talking-over, and he never forgot it. Two such talkers-over as Bromham Rhodes and R. P. de Parys were scarcely to be found in the length and breadth of theatrical London. Nothing, it seemed, could the gifted pair even begin to think of doing without first discussing the proposition in all its aspects. The amount of food which Roland found himself compelled to absorb during the course of these debates was appalling. Discussions which began at lunch would be continued until it was time to order dinner; and then, as likely as not, they would have to sit there till supper-time in order to thrash the question thoroughly out.     

       The collection of a cast was a matter even more complicated than the actual composition of the revue. There was the almost insuperable difficulty that Miss Verepoint firmly vetoed every name suggested. It seemed practically impossible to find any man or woman in all England or America whose peculiar gifts or lack of them would not interfere with Miss Verepoint's giving a satisfactory performance of the principal role. It was all very perplexing to Roland; but as Miss Verepoint was an expert in theatrical matters, he scarcely felt entitled to question her views.     

       It was about this time that Roland proposed to Miss Verepoint. The passage of time and the strain of talking over the revue had to a certain extent moderated his original fervor. He had shaded off from a passionate devotion, through various diminishing tints of regard for her, into a sort of 

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